The Greatest Thing About My Grannie…

Everyone who personally knows me knows that when I’m referring to my Grannie, it’s my mother’s mother. When my other grandmother was alive, Grandma Emma, I either referred to her by name, or as “my other grandmother.” Grannie has always been Grannie.

One of the best things about our relationship is that I had her all to myself for twenty-three years. This was for two reasons. One, my aunt and mother were at least a decade apart. Secondly, my aunt delayed having children until she was in her 30s, thus giving me a Grannie advantage, so to speak, and also making me the only person to call her Grannie. Even though my cousins and I share a grandmother, because they’re in the same generation as my children, for whom she is their great-grandmother, they all call her Gi-Gi.

But I digress.

The best thing about my Grannie is that she always has some wonderful piece of advice, in the form of a saying that just seems to roll off her tongue.

Her most recent one is “The only reason you’re not president is because Obama is.” See how poignant that is? I always took that to mean that you can do whatever you want to do. It shows a positive characteristic that she possesses. For the most part, anything you tell her you want to do, she’ll encourage you and even monetarily support you in achieving that dream.

Another piece of advice that I was raised hearing is “If you make your bed hard, then get out the bed.” I always thought this was clever because it’s a twist on an older adage if you make your bed hard, then lie in it. “Oh no,” my Grannie will tell you to this day. “If your bed is hard, then go find a new bed; change the bed.” I absolutely love this saying because it’s so true. A lot of times we think we have to remain in a situation because we created the situation. But even the law of attraction and all types of new age thinking will advise you to create a new thought and manifest a new reality.

The last piece of advice she gave me was as an adult. I remember explaining to her an email I’d sent to my doctoral chair. Having little knowledge about email, she stopped me mid-story and said, “You’re giving this lady too much information. She doesn’t need to know that you have to drop the kids off and pick them up at five. All she needs to know is you can’t make the meeting.” From that day on, I rarely give excuses for why I can’t do something at work. She was right. All people need to know is the crux of the information. A lot of times we want people to know that we’re hard workers, who would never be derelict in our duties. We think we need “good excuses” to not meet job expectations. Nope. We don’t. So pare down those emails and know that everything will be okay.

Tomorrow will be Grannie’s 92nd birthday. I’m sure when I speak with her, she’ll have more quotables for me.

Do you have any favorite sayings that get you through situations? Feel free to share. My blog is called Kwoted after all 😉

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63 thoughts on “The Greatest Thing About My Grannie…”

Isn’t it?! Grandmas know it ALL. LOL
YESSS, “There’s two?!” That’s EXACTLY what my father said when we were born! Hahaha
Howe, we are very different. For starters, I am older by 10 minutes AND that gives me the advantage of being the first born grandchild!👍 I own it, as you see, too! 😛

Hey Dr. Garland! I think you should if you haven’t already, take a video cam and record her whole life story. Interview her if you must. We don’t want all that precious wisdom, knowledge and history that she has to be forgotten.

I like this blog post about your Grannie. She is a very intelligent and wise woman for sure. I hope she had a wonderful Happy 92 nd Birthday !! I had a friend who worked on farms back home. If we complained about hard times he had a good saying that have stuck in my mind since. He would say ” That don’t cut no ice” . Which at the time made me confused but after thinking about it he was right. Bad times should not hold us back from achieving our dreams in life.

You are very welcome K E Garland. I am happy your Grannie enjoyed this with the comments. We all helped her 92 nd Birthday better which is amazing !! I am some glad you agree with my friends quote. Thank you for that !

Your grandmother sounds like a lovely and wise woman. I am happy you are so close with her 🙂 And a belated happy birthday to her! 92, impressive!

My grandmother died when I was 11. But I was her youngest grandchild and she made it to 88, so I can’t be too upset there. However, I still miss her a lot sometimes. She was the kindest person I have ever known in my entire life! I mostly remember her from her never ever depleting amount of candies, the toys she kept for us to play with, and her everlasting love and attention ❤

I never knew my other grandmother, unfortunately. But I was blessed with the most amazing woman to call my nanna 🙂 Oh, what I would give to have one more minute with her… ❤

Happy Birthday Ms/Mrs. Grannie! 😉
I was raised to always respect my elders and greet them with respect as well.
The “Grannie advantage “, ❤️ I have a twin sister, so I had to share right away. However, being first born I feel I had the “Grannie advantage”, too. Love that!😍

I feel like you and I have a bond. You share a birthday with my grandma and 92nd birthday is an amazing birthday!

There are two things I would say my grandma said to me…
1) ¡Te Amo Mucho Mi Nieta Bonita!
Translation, “I love you very much my beautiful granddaughter!” She would always say this to me when saying goodbye AND she would always say it in Español.💙
2) stick a wooden spoon in it!
I remember calling her about cooking her famous ( and my favorite!) Red Beans & Rice. In the end, I either had soggy rice ( too much water) or crunchy rice ( not enough water). Help. She said “Put a wooden spoon in it.” Meaning, if the spoon stood up I had enough water. If it quickly fell, then I didn’t have enough water. I thought she was talking crazy, but I tried it. It worked!👍 #wisdom #goodtimes I miss her.
Enjoy your Grannie and her special day!!!

Your Grannie is amazing! “If your bed is hard, then go find a new one” is my favourite. It’s nice having elders like this who can share their wisdom and knowledge from their life experiences. I hope she had a lovely birthday😊

Loved reading about your Grannie. She’s right, you were telling that lady too much. LOL. Wish I had these words of wisdom from a grandparent, but both sets parented late in life and were gone before I arrived. Still, I have borrowed my friend’s grandparents through the years. All that wisdom and the stories! I can listen for hours. My late mom, as a Grannie, gave my daughter some pretty good advice, like ‘Never let a man in your purse, because one he gets in, he won’t get out.’ and ‘Do what you want and be happy. Just don’t hurt anybody.’

I love Grannie, but you already know that. Really love the last quote, nowadays I check my texts and emails for excuses, pity party announcements and search for validation and I nip those in the bud. Love that you indirectly call them out to at times with your dead pan ‘okay’ 😂 please wish Grannie a belated happy birthday for me and tell her she inspires me 💖

A wise lady, your grannie. I like the one about the hard bed and getting out of it. Such a change from the lying in it version, where you punish yourself for your mistakes instead of fixing them and moving on. Two of my favorite sayings would be “Jump and you’ll grow your wings on the way down” and “when God closes a door, He opens a window.” 🙂

Sounds like an incredible woman that’s a fountain of good advice and hard-hitting one-liners! “The only reason you’re not president is because Obama is” – I love that. Wishing Grannie a wonderful 92nd Birthday for tomorrow! 🙂
Caz xx

Happy Birthday to your Grannie! Well my parents had lots of sayings and expressions. Mostly my Dad. Here are some Edwardisms:

“If you lay down with dogs. You’ll get up with fleas.”

“I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

“Better to Light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

“Don’t put your business out in the street.” ~~ This one is both from Edward & Mable. In this TMI and Over-sharing age I really take this to heart now. I keep my personal Life Private.

“You made Your bed now lie in it.” Meaning that he was not going to rescue me from the latest fiasco and dumbest thing I was doing. You learn by making mistakes. In real life there are not superheroes to come to your rescue so you learn Not to do Stupid. My parents were tough and loving to prepare me for a world that is rough, brutal and tough. Some things I had to learn the hard way. I’ve come through the School of Hard Knocks.

“I’m Free Black and 21!” I suppose that means that I’m old enough to do what I want to do the way I want to do it!

Awesome, awesome, awesome! Happy birthday to your grannie, Kathy. She had fantastic sayings. So incredibly wise. I especially love the one about not giving excuses. There’s no need to validate ourselves to anyone, right?

I’d love to include this in #ForgivingFridays next week. Is that ok with you? Feel free to link back to my post today if you want to. (No pressure of course!) Love these nuggets of wisdom and they fit in so well with forgiveness and claiming our magnificence.